“Sit still, Mammy, right where you are. I'm going to paint you.”
“Namer Gawd! paint me, Mahs William? After all dem pretty things whar you kin paint, paint yo' old Mammy?” She slapped herself on the knees, called the name of the Lord several times, and burst into the heartiest laugh that I had heard from her for some time.
“Yes, Mammy, just sit right still, and don't talk much, and I won't make you tired.”
I worked frantically, getting in the drawing as surely as I could, then attacked the face in color. The result was a success that astonished me. Mammy's evident fatigue stopped me. It was fortunate. I might have painted more and spoiled my study. I thought that she would go now, but her mission was not fulfilled. She had come to consult me on an important matter.
“You know this Freedman's Bureau, Mahs William? Well, they tells me—Lawd knows what they calls it bureau for!—they tells me that of a colored pusson goes down thar and gives in what he wuz worth—women either, mind you—that the guv'mint would pay um.”
Mammy paused for corroboration, but I determined to hear what she might add to this remarkable statement. “Well?”
“Well, sah, I didn't want to go down thar without no price, so I called in to arst you what you might consider yo' fif' worth, an' five times ovah.”
I did not laugh at Mammy. The emancipated negroes had such utterly wild notions of what was going to be done for them that Mammy's statement did not surprise me very much. I let her go with the assurance that I would inquire into the matter. She left enjoining me not to put that “fif' too cheap,” and I insisting that she should not go to the Bureau, in deference to whose officials her astonishing toilet had evidently been made.
I was so much pleased with my own work that it was nearly twilight before the knock of a familiar friend roused me. He was a clever amateur, and took the greatest interest in my work. His enthusiasm over Mammy's effigy made me glow. He agreed to pose for me in Mammy's costume.
Next day I borrowed the outfit without intimating that it was to be worn by anybody. Mammy was over-nervous about its being properly cared for. I think that she still contemplated appearing in it at the Bureau.